Like everyone else, I’m glad to see the back of 2020 and hopefully we can start the new year with a win at Burton Albion today.

Ignore the league table and the form guide, it has become a tricky game for us after our opponents reappointed Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink as manager last night.

It was amazing how many times we seemed to come up against clubs in that situation last season.

That meant either the opposition were playing us with a point to prove to the new boss, or knowing that a prospective new manager was watching from the stands.

Karl Robinson: Burton Albion have the quality to hurt Oxford United

With Hasselbaink watching but not in charge, whoever’s in control of the Brewers today will look at our run of results and see that we’re in decent form.

We’ve only lost once in our last ten games – that defeat was a painful one against Swindon and has definitely spurred us on.

I always said we needed a little time to settle into the season and I maintain that we aren’t the finished article yet.

But we’re 100 per cent on the right road and I feel as though we’ve been getting better with each game over the last month or two.

On Tuesday night we ended the year on a good note with an excellent win down in Plymouth.

We had to fight back after conceding an early goal, but we didn’t panic.

We adjusted one or two things without changing the core fundamentals of how we like to play, and from the moment we got level through Josh Ruffels we were very much on top.

Everyone’s talking about Sam Long scoring the ‘goal of the season’ so far, which it probably is, but they’re missing the fact that Mide Shodipo had the bottle to step up and take a penalty.

He showed great maturity for a player on loan, while people like Sean Clare, Mark Sykes and Anthony Forde played a key part in securing the win.

Read also: Oxford United team news for Burton Albion clash

We’re a very tight group and everyone plays a role. That will become even more apparent this year.

We have come through a lot, but we’ll strengthen the squad and keep getting better in 2021.

I was invited on to BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday morning to talk about Covid protocols in football.

I don’t usually get asked to speak on political programmes and someone unkindly said I was the first Scouser on that channel since Cilla Black did ‘Desert Island Discs’!

The reason I was on was because we’re all due to be tested this week; players and first team staff.

I’ve stated publicly that whatever the results, provided it’s safe, we’ll play our next game – which is now against Cambridge in the Papa John’s Trophy.

If we have players missing then so be it, we will find a way of playing a competitive side.

That’s not saying things are wrong when other clubs call games off, and we completely understand the safety aspect of all this.

But all we want to do is play football matches.

If it’s possible to play then we will always try to find a way.